The Brighter Side of Dark
by SSJL
Summary: She couldn't beat him, but he didn't necessarily want her to join him in this dark place. Possible spoilers for Season 4 finale.


The sudden, bright light and the '_snap' _of the blinds being quickly and unceremoniously raised pulled Seeley Booth from a deep, troubled sleep. He yelped and was briefly blinded, but he quickly recognized the silhouette of the figure hovering over him.

"Christ, Bones," he moaned, grabbing his pillow and slamming it over his face. "What the hell are you _doing _here?"

"You didn't come to work today. So I came to you."

Awareness seeped back into him, unwanted. Automatically his brain began cataloguing each of his bodily sensations. Did anything hurt? Did anything _not _hurt that should? Was he nauseous? Was he seeing things? If the answer to all of those things was 'no,' his mind began the process again, then again, in loop form. He _hated _being awake.

"I called in sick," he grumbled, voice muffled under the pillow. "Normal people do that sometimes."

"What's wrong with you?"

The pillow was snatched out of his hands off his face, and he squinted at her in annoyance. The light wasn't quite as shocking, but it was unwelcome, as was his partner's concerned face taking inventory of him.

"I'm on _chemo, _Bones. That's what's wrong with me. Surely you've heard that the process of chemo isn't _pleasant." _He glared at her, all beautiful and put-together, as she surveyed his room. "And what's with just busting in on me in my house? It's becoming a _habit."_

"You didn't answer your phone," she responded primly, glancing at the cell on his nightstand that he indeed turned off right after calling in this morning. "And you had chemo on Friday. You arranged it that way so you'd have the weekend to recover and you could come back to work on Monday."

Was she seriously questioning him about this? Anybody else, he just _intimated _the "C" word—and they let him off the hook. "Is it so hard to believe that my body isn't keeping the schedule I set for it?"

"Booth, I've seen you get _shot _and still come into work the next day. Come on. I need help with this case. There is nothing wrong with you that you can't talk to witnesses or interrogate suspects. Or help me with paperwork."

Stubbornly, he closed his eyes again. "Call up Cullen and I'm sure he'll assign someone else who can work with you squints for…awhile. I'm sick. I can't help you."

"So you aren't going to come with me?"

"No." Resolutely.

"You aren't going to get out of bed?"

"No." Bed had treated him well all weekend, and he wasn't going to give it up now.

There were a few moments of silence, and he thought maybe it had worked…she had given up and was going to leave him alone in his dark room and not try to force him to remember all the things he might be missing.

No luck.

"What are you _doing?" _he asked for the second time, just as unsuccessfully, as she sat on the bed, pulling at her shoes.

"I think there's a saying…" She bit her lip in her attempt to remember, kicking her shoes aside and pulling off her jacket, folding it neatly before placing it on the chair beside his bed. "If you can't win, join the team?"

"If you can't beat 'em…" he began correcting, before getting distracted by his partner sliding under the sheets next to him in her tank top. "Okay. _This _is not right. _You _are not sick."

"We're partners," she said easily, fluffing the pillow behind her and wiggling to get comfortable. "Our work is most successful when we do it together, so when one of us is handicapped, so is the other. So. I'm not getting out of this bed until you do." She squirmed. "No wonder you have so many back issues, Booth. This mattress isn't even."

He gawked at the woman struggling to make herself comfortable in _his _sanctuary. "You aren't seriously staying here."

"I seriously am," she disagreed, still not looking entirely comfortable. "These sheets are scratchy. You wear Armani suits, and sleep on sheets with a 150 thread count? That makes no sense."

"If I would have known I was going to have company, I'd have brought out the good stuff," he groused.

"Nice pillows, though." She folded her hands behind her head and glanced at him. "I have a story."

He groaned. "Tell me it will put me to sleep."

She ignored him. "When I was in grad school, our final practicum involved a solo skeletal reconstruction, every Thursday for an entire semester. We all would gather in the lab, each be given our assignment, and then there would be nothing but silence for hours while we all worked. We could ask the professor for help if it were absolutely necessary, but it was better if we didn't."

"The egghead honor code says do it alone," he muttered.

"The thing was…everybody always got done faster than I did. I was always the last person left in that lab, by a good hour or so. And I just couldn't get it, because during lectures and group work, I always _swore _I knew that stuff better than anybody else. But they were getting the same grades, and somehow seemed to be so much more efficient."

His eyebrows rose. "That must have driven you crazy."

"It bothered me, yes. So I studied more. Read every book and forensics article I could find. I tried _everything. _And it still took me longer."

Booth shook his head. "So what was the catch? Because I _know _you didn't become the top forensic anthropologist in the country by being the slowest."

"Well…in the end, I felt thoroughly exhausted and defeated. Two-thirds of the way through the semester, I finally decided to ask for help. I went to the professor and asked her why I seemed to be so far behind the progress of the rest of my classmates. I…was almost crying."

Her face colored, and he repressed another smart-ass comment, _knowing _that the remembrance of that feeling—the feeling of being not-the-best—disturbed her.

"What did she say?"

Brennan exhaled a breath. "She said…that she had been giving me remains that she and her colleagues had been unable to identify or make sense of. Everybody else had been getting ones that were designated for training purposes. She gave _me _the conundrums. The impossible ones. It wasn't amazing that they took so long. It was amazing that I figured them out at _all. _She had been testing the true extent of my talent._"_

In spite of himself, he smiled. That was his Bones.

"Anyway, I talked to Angela once I discovered this, and she told me she thought it was unfair, that I was being given challenges greater than those of my classmates…especially since I hadn't had a chance to prepare myself for such challenges. But the fact that I _didn't _know…and persevered anyway…it only increased my confidence"

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Temperance Brennan. Are you trying to create a metaphor here?"

She shrugged. "No. I'm just telling a story. That began with my fear and anxiety over the appearance of inequity and inadequacy, and ended with renewed confirmation of my abilities. Because I didn't give up and feel sorry for myself. I hope you enjoyed it."

He glared for a few more seconds, trying to get her to break and admit to her transparent pep talk.

Instead, she looked away from him, yawned, and stretched, bare arms extending to his headboard, and it was such an evident show of nonchalance that he couldn't help but laugh at her.

"What?" she asked, blue eyes widening innocently as she flipped to her side.

"Nothing," he said ruefully, shaking his head. She blinked, her own lips curling into a mischievous smile, and it struck him for the first time the implication of her like this: lying, hair mussed against his pillow, the sun from the open blinds making the bare skin of her shoulders glow, a mere few inches away from him.

"_What?" _she asked more insistently this time, clearly seeing the change play across his face, and now he was laughing at the ridiculous of the situation. Suddenly, his body was having a _decidedly _healthy response to her, and his main priority had switched from convincing her he was a sick man, to getting out of this situation without her realizing he had a hard-on.

"You know what?" he said suddenly. "Maybe I could try to do a little bit of work today. If I don't feel well, I can always go home."

"You always could," she agreed, a big smile coming over her face.

"Okay?"

"Okay," she nodded.

"Bones?"

"Hmm?"

"Maybe you want to get out of my bed so I can get ready?"

"Oh!" Realizing she was in the way, she sat up suddenly, swinging her legs around the side of the bed and leaning over to hunt for the shoes she had kicked aside. "Sorry. I didn't know if you'd need to hear more stories before I got you out of this place." Finally, she found all her discarded clothes items and turned to face him once more. "I'll go downstairs and get you some coffee. You'll come down soon, right?"

She looked uncertain in the moment, and he was quick to reassure you. "I promise." Another look, and there was no _way _he was going to get out of this bed until she left the room and closed the door. "Bones."

"Okay!" she said, relenting. She stood and made for the door, pausing one more moment before she closed it behind her. "It's still a little chilly out today, but it's bright. Don't overdress…I think it might get warmer."

He gave her a final smile. "Thanks," he told her, and the door softly clicked shut.

Finally able to stand without humiliation, he eased himself from the bed and walked unsteadily to the window, realizing just now how little he'd been moving in past several days. He paced a few steps, trying to lose the coltishness of his walk, and ended by the window. Had there been robins outside last week? He didn't quite remember, but he could see them now, chasing one another in circles in the sky before settling on a tree branch, enjoying the sun. The glow was indeed tempting; when he touched the glass of the window, the coolness resonated on his fingertips, reminding him that it wasn't spring quite yet. But Bones had said, _I think it might get warmer._

"I think it already has," he murmured his response to the empty room. He let his fingers rest just one more second before turning back to shower, dress, and get back to the world of the wakened, the warm, and the living.


End file.
